A grocery store is a retail store that primarily sells food. A grocer is a bulk seller of food. Grocery stores often offer non-perishable food, with some also having fresh produce, butchers, delis, and bakeries. Large grocery stores that stock significant amounts of non-food products, such as clothing and household items, are called supermarkets. Some large supermarkets also include a pharmacy and an electronics section, the latter selling DVDs, headphones, digital alarm clocks, and similar items.

In the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom, supermarkets and convenience stores are sometimes described as grocery businesses, or simply grocers.[note 1] Small grocery stores that mainly sell fruits and vegetables are known as produce markets (U.S.) or greengrocers (Britain), and small grocery stores that predominantly sell prepared food, such as candy and snacks, are known as convenience stores or delicatessens.

Some grocery stores (especially large ones) form the centerpiece of a larger complex that includes other facilities, such as gas stations, which will often operate under the store's name. This setup is especially common in the United Kingdom, with major chains such as Tesco and Sainsbury's having many locations operating under this format.

Some groceries specialize in the foods of a certain nationality or culture, such as Italian, Polish, oriental or Middle-Eastern. These stores are known as ethnic markets and may also serve as gathering places for immigrants.[1] In many cases, the wide range of products carried by larger supermarkets has reduced the need for such speciality stores.[citation needed] The variety and availability of food is no longer restricted by the diversity of locally grown food or the limitations of the local growing season.[2]

Beginning as early as the 14th century, a grocer (or "purveyor") was a dealer in comestible dry goods such as spices, peppers, sugar, and (later) cocoa, tea and coffee. These items were bought in bulk, hence the term grocer from the French "grossier" meaning wholesaler, this term derived from Medieval Latin "grossarius" [3] from which we also derive the word gross (meaning a quantity of twelve dozen, or 144).

As increasing numbers of staple foodstuffs became available in cans and other less-perishable packaging, the trade expanded its province. Today, grocers deal in a wide range of staple food-stuffs including such perishables as meats, produce and dairy products. Such goods are, hence, groceries.

In some countries such as the United States, grocery stores descended from trading posts, which sold not only food but clothing, household items, tools, furniture, and other miscellaneous merchandise. These trading posts evolved into larger retail businesses known as general stores. These facilities generally dealt only in "dry" goods such as flour, dry beans, baking soda, and canned foods. Perishable foods were instead obtained from specialty markets; Fresh meat was obtained from a butcher, milk from a local dairy, eggs and vegetables were either produced by families themselves, bartered for with neighbours, or purchased at a farmers' market or a local greengrocer.

Many rural areas still contain general stores that sell goods ranging from cigars to imported napkins. Traditionally, general stores have offered credit to their customers, a system of payment that works on trust rather than modern credit cards. This allowed farm families to buy staples until their harvest could be sold.

The first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, was opened in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee by Clarence Saunders, an inventor and entrepreneur.[4][5] Prior to this innovation, the customer of a grocer would walk up to a counter or display and ask for the food items they wanted to purchase, or hand over a grocery list, as an order that the grocer or other clerks would then fill and charge the customer for. Saunder's invention allowed a much smaller number of clerks to service the customers, proving successful (according to a 1929 Time magazine) "partly because of its novelty, partly because neat packages and large advertising appropriations have made retail grocery selling almost an automatic procedure."[6]

Frozen durian fruit grown in East Asia at a Chinese grocery in Ottawa, Canada. Grocery stores specializing in imported so-called "ethnic" foods are popular in many immigrant communities, offering imported food that large supermarket chains do not.

An example of an American grocery store aisle

The early supermarkets began as chains of grocer's shops. The development of supermarkets and other large grocery stores has meant that smaller grocery stores often must create a niche market by selling unique, premium quality, or ethnic foods that are not easily found in supermarkets. A small grocery store may also compete by locating in a mixed commercial-residential area close to, and convenient for, its customers. Organic foods are also becoming a more popular niche market for the smaller stores.

Grocery stores operate in many different styles ranging from rural family-owned operations, such as IGAs, boutique chains, such as Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's to larger supermarket chain stores. In some places, food cooperatives or "co-op" markets, owned by their own shoppers, have been popular. However, there has recently been a trend towards larger stores serving larger geographic areas. Very large "all-in-one" hypermarkets such as Walmart and Target have recently forced consolidation of the grocery businesses in some areas. The global buying power of such very efficient companies has put an increased financial burden on traditional local grocery stores as well as the national supermarket chains.

However, many European cities (Rome, for example) are already so dense in population and buildings, large supermarkets, in the American sense, may not replace the neighborhood grocery store. However, 'Metro' stores have been appearing in town and city centres in many countries, leading to the decline of independent smaller stores. Large out-of-town supermarkets and hypermarkets, such as Tesco and Sainsbury's in the United Kingdom, have been steadily weakening trade from smaller stores. Many grocery shop chains like Spar or Mace are taking over the regular family business model. However, traditional stores throughout Europe have been preserved because of their history and their classic appearance. They are sometimes still found in rural areas, although they are rapidly disappearing.

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Grocery stores in Latin America have been growing fast since the early 1980s. A large percentage of food sales and other articles take place in grocery stores today. Some examples are the Chilean chains Cencosud (Jumbo and Santa Isabel covering Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Peru), Walmart (Lider and Ekono) as well as Falabella (Tottus in Chile and Peru and Supermercados San Francisco in Chile). These three chains are subsidiaries of large retail companies which also have other kinds of business units, such as department stores and home improvement outlets. All three also operate their own credit cards, which are a key driver for sales, and they also sell insurance and operate travel agencies. These companies also run some malls in countries such as Argentina, Chile, Peru and Colombia.

Two other chains started in 2008: Unimarc, which bought several small local chains and has over 20% of the grocery segment in Chile; and Southern Cross, a Chilean Investment Fund that has around 8.6% of the supermarket segment, mainly oriented to the southern areas of the country. In Puerto Rico, popular grocery stores include Pueblo Supermarkets and Amigo.

A convenience store is a small store that stocks a range of everyday items such as groceries, snack foods, candy, toiletries, soft drinks, tobacco products, and newspapers. They differ from general stores and village shops in that they are not in a rural location and are used as a convenient supplement to larger stores.

Although larger, newer convenience stores may have quite a broad range of items, the selection is still limited compared to supermarkets, and in many stores only 1 or 2 choices are available. Convenience stores usually charge significantly higher prices than ordinary grocery stores or supermarkets, which they make up for with convenience by serving more locations and having shorter cashier lines.[7] Many convenience stores offer food ready to eat, such as breakfast sandwiches and other breakfast food.

A delicatessen store is a type of food store where fine foods are sold. In this sense the name is often abbreviated to deli.[8] The term delicatessen means "delicacies" or "fine foods". In English, "delicatessen" originally meant only this specially prepared food.

A supermarket, a large form of the traditional grocery store, is a self-serviceshop offering a wide variety of food and household products, organized into aisles. The supermarket typically comprises meat, fresh produce, dairy, and baked goods aisles, along with shelf space reserved for canned and packaged goods as well as for various non-food items such as kitchenware, household cleaners, pharmacy products and pet supplies.

An online grocer is a recent phenomenon that has developed as a type of e-commerce.[11] Several online grocery stores exist, one of the oldest available in the U.S. being Peapod.[12] Nowadays, Many online grocery stores like Amazon,Netgrocer,MyBrands, Efooddepot and many more that all aims to provide quality ethnic food products with timely delivery and convenience of ordering online.[13] Other large retailers in the U.S. have started similar models, including AmazonFresh and Prime Pantry, both run by Amazon.com, Walmart's To-Go service, and smaller companies like Yummy.com and RelayFoods.[14] In the U.S. sales from online grocers in 2013 were $15 billion.[15] Online grocery stores are more popular in Europe, where sales from 2012 in Britain alone were €7.1 billion, and in certain markets are projected to double from 2012 to 2016.[16]

Food marketing brings together the producer and the consumer. It is the chain of activities that brings food from "farm gate to plate".[17] The marketing of even a single food product can be a complicated process involving many producers and companies. For example, fifty-six companies are involved in making one can of chicken noodle soup. These businesses include not only chicken and vegetable processors but also the companies that transport the ingredients and those who print labels and manufacture cans.[18] The food marketing system is the largest direct and indirect non-government employer in the United States.

In the pre-modern era, the sale of surplus food took place once a week when farmers took their wares on market day into the local village marketplace. Here food was sold to grocers for sale in their local shops for purchase by local consumers.[19][20] With the onset of industrialization and the development of the food processing industry, a wider range of food could be sold and distributed in distant locations. Typically early grocery shops would be counter-based shops, in which purchasers told the shop-keeper what they wanted, so that the shop-keeper could get it for them.[19][21]

In the 20th century, supermarkets were born. Supermarkets brought with them a self service approach to shopping using shopping carts, and were able to offer quality food at lower cost through economies of scale and reduced staffing costs. In the latter part of the 20th century, this has been further revolutionized by the development of vast warehouse-sized, out-of-town supermarkets, selling a wide range of food from around the world.[22]

Unlike food processors, food retailing is a two-tier market in which a small number of very large companies control a large proportion of supermarkets. The supermarket giants wield great purchasing power over farmers and processors, and strong influence over consumers. Nevertheless, less than 10% of consumer spending on food goes to farmers, with larger percentages going to advertising, transportation, and intermediate corporations.[23]

It was reported on March 24, 2008, that consumers worldwide faced rising food prices.[24] Reasons for this development include changes in the weather and dramatic changes in the global economy, including higher oil prices, lower food reserves, and growing consumer demand in China and India.[24] In the long term, prices are expected to stabilize.[24] Farmers will grow more grain for both fuel and food and eventually bring prices down.[24] Already this is happening with wheat,[25][26] with more crops to be planted in the United States, Canada, and Europe in 2009. However, the Food and Agriculture Organization projects that consumers still have to deal with more expensive food until at least 2018.[24]

It is rare for the spikes to hit all major foods in most countries at once. Food prices rose 4% in the United States in 2007, the highest increase since 1990, and are expected to climb as much again in 2008. As of December 2007, 37 countries faced food crises, and 20 had imposed some sort of food-price controls. In China, the price of pork jumped 58% in 2007. In the 1980s and 1990s, farm subsidies and support programs allowed major grain exporting countries to hold large surpluses, which could be tapped during food shortages to keep prices down. However, new trade policies have made agricultural production much more responsive to market demands, putting global food reserves at their lowest since 1983.[24]

Food prices are rising, wealthier Asian consumers are westernizing their diets, and farmers and nations of the third world are struggling to keep up the pace. The past five years have seen rapid growth in the contribution of Asian nations to the global fluid and powdered milk manufacturing industry, which in 2008 accounted for more than 30% of production, while China alone accounts for more than 10% of both production and consumption in the global fruit and vegetable processing and preserving industry. The trend is similarly evident in industries such as soft drink and bottled water manufacturing, as well as global cocoa, chocolate, and sugar confectionery manufacturing, forecast to grow by 5.7% and 10.0% respectively during 2008 in response to soaring demand in Chinese and Southeast Asian markets.

In 2013 Overseas Development Institute researchers showed that rice has more than doubled in price since 2000, rising by 120% in real terms. This was as a result of shifts in trade policy and restocking by major producers. More fundamental drivers of increased prices are the higher costs of fertiliser, diesel and labour. Parts of Asia see rural wages rise with potential large benefits for the 1.3 billion (2008 estimate) of Asia's poor in reducing the poverty they face. However, this negatively impacts more vulnerable groups who don't share in the economic boom, especially in Asian and African coastal cities. The researchers said the threat means social-protection policies are needed to guard against price shocks. The research proposed that in the longer run, the rises present opportunities to export for Western African farmers with high potential for rice production to replace imports with domestic production.[29]

The US Labor Department has calculated that food purchased at home and in restaurants is 13% of household purchases, behind 32% for housing and 18% for transportation. The average US family spent $280 per month or $3,305 per year at grocery stores in 2004. The newsletter Dollar Stretcher survey estimated $149 a month for a single person, $257 for a couple and $396 for a family of four.[30]

Packaging protects food from damage during its transportation from farms and factories via warehouses to retailing, as well as preserving its freshness upon arrival.[33] Although it avoids considerable food waste,[33][34] packaging can compromise efforts to reduce food waste in other ways, such as by contaminating waste that could be used for animal feedstocks.[35]

Retail stores can throw away large quantities of food. Usually, this consists of items that have reached either their best before, sell-by or use-by dates. Food that passed the best before, and sell-by date, and even some food that passed the use-by date is still edible at the time of disposal, but stores have widely varying policies to handle the excess food. Some stores put effort into preventing access to poor or homeless people, while others work with charitable organizations to distribute food.

Retailers also contribute to waste as a result of their contractual arrangements with suppliers. Failure to supply agreed quantities renders farmers or processors liable to have their contracts cancelled. As a consequence, they plan to produce more than actually required to meet the contract, to have a margin of error. Surplus production is often simply disposed.[36] Some grocery stores donate leftover food (for example, deli foods and bread past their expiration date) to homeless shelters or charity kitchens.[37]

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